Hogwarts Legacy is enjoying widespread critical and commercial success, to little surprise, and given the game’s initial (and likely continued) success and the massive popularity of the property it’s based on, it already seems inevitable that a sequel will get made. Of course, Hogwarts Legacy only just launched, which means a hypothetical sequel won’t be out for several more years yet. Whenever it does, however, we’d like to see it make improvements over its predecessor in a number of key areas. Here are a few of them.
QUIDDITCH
Part of the Hogwarts school life fantasy is to be able to play Quidditch, but sadly, the high-flying sport isn’t part of the package in Hogwarts Legacy. You can, of course, still use a broom to fly around in the open world, but there’s no shortage of people who were hoping to also be able to play the sport itself. Hopefully when Hogwarts Legacy 2 (or whatever it is called) rolls around, it will also feature fully playable Quidditch and allow players to progress through the cup throughout the course of the school year.
MORE FOCUS ON SCHOOL LIFE
Hogwarts Legacy checks a lot of boxes for people who’ve been dreaming about an open world game set in Hogwarts where you get to play as a student, but even so, there isn’t as much focus on actual school life as some would have hoped for. For instance, while you do get assignments from your professors, that’s also the bulk of your curricular in-game activities, so you’re not attending and participating in classes. We’d love to see a Hogwarts Legacy sequel place more of an emphasis on that, maybe make players have to deal with curfews in the open world at nighttime that necessitate stealth, and other similar systems and mechanics that put your life as a student front and center.
MORE HOUSE-SPECIFIC CONTENT
Hogwarts Legacy lets you choose which House you want to be sorted into, but sadly, that’s not a decision that has too much of a material impact on the game or its story. Based on which House you’re in, your cosmetics will be altered and you might get to see different dialogue here and there, but beyond such tweaks, the core experience remains vastly unchanged. Our hope is that when we next attend Hogwarts, the content and story that we experience will be genuinely impacted by which House we belong to in terms of both the story and gameplay.
HOUSE CUP
How exactly do you integrate the Hogwarts Houses into the gameplay side of things though? Well, making the House Cup a game-wide mechanic with material rewards and consequences would be an excellent way to go about that. Having your in-game actions directly impact how much points your House is receiving (or being docked) would make it even easier for players to get more invested in all activities. Hopefully, the sequel will allow players to to contribute to their House winning or losing out on the House Cup at the end of the year.
LESS FOCUS ON AREAS OUTSIDE HOGWARTS
The open world map of Hogwarts Legacy is absolutely massive, and though Hogwarts Castle itself is obviously the star of the show, in terms of pure real estate, it dwarfs in comparison to the size of the map beyond its borders. And though there’s a lot to like in the areas outside Hogwarts, there’s no denying that the game is at its best when you’re in the castle itself. That is where the open world is most brimming with tiny little details and engaging side activities, and other parts of the map don’t quite reach that same level. While we certainly don’t want Hogwarts Legacy 2 to completely ignore those areas and focus exclusively on the castle, we’d love to see it emphasize the latter a great deal more, and give players even greater encouragement to explore the school and all of its nook and crannies. Hogwarts Legacy does a solid job of that as it is, but there’s certainly room for improvement in a potential sequel.
IMPROVED CHOICE AND CONSEQUENCE MECHANICS
Hogwarts Legacy, like many other similar open world action RPGs, makes choice and consequences mechanics an important part of the experience. Throughout the story, you’re asked to make decisions through dialogue choices at frequent intervals, while the choices you make in a variety of side quests can also have an impact on future events. And while those mechanics are implemented well-enough, it’s fair to say that they’re not taken as far as they could have been. Obviously, we’re not saying every game has to be The Witcher 3, but there are various ways a Hogwarts Legacy sequel can make player choice feel even more nuanced and impactful.
Speaking of which…
MORALITY SYSTEM
Having a morality system should be a top priority for Avalanche Software whenever it gets around to making a sequel. Being able to live the student life you want and being whatever kind of witch or wizard you want to be is a big selling point for Hogwarts Legacy, and the game does deserve credit for how much freedom it affords on that front. But the choices you do make in that regard have very little tangible consequences. For instance, you can be a Dark wizard who chooses to learn and freely use the Unforgivable Curses, but there’s no morality system in place to clearly define what that entails and whether it affects the story and how characters perceive you. Hopefully, this is something Hogwarts Legacy’s sequel will look to address.
IMPROVED GEAR SYSTEM
You can’t have a modern AAA open world RPG without a gear system in place, and Hogwarts Legacy doesn’t buck that trend. Frankly, however, it doesn’t go all-out with its implementation of loot. There’s a lot of it, yes, but it’s fairly limited in the kind of impact it has on your character build, which means you’re rarely encouraged to engage with it beyond the surface level. As long as whatever you equip makes the numbers go up for your three primary stats, anything works (though the transmog system definitely helps improve the system). If Hogwarts Legacy 2 does decide to decide with this style of progression, it needs to implement much more expanded loot mechanics that place a greater emphasis on player expression and build variety.
BETTER SIDE QUESTS
Credit where credit is due- Hogwarts Legacy has a fair few really good side quests, some of which are at least as good as what the main story has on offer. By and large, however, the side quest design in the game is fairly by-the-numbers. The fact that you’re in an open world Hogwarts and can use several different kinds of magic helps elevate those quests, sure, but the actual design could certainly use some improvements. We’d love to see more intricate storylines, more engaging side characters, and objectives that don’t pull from the same pool that every open world RPG seems to these days.
LONGER MAIN STORY
Hogwarts Legacy is a massive game with a bevy of things to do, and if you take your time with it and engage with the optional content, you can easily get over 50 hours out of it, if not more. The main story, however, is a little bit on the short side at 20-25 hours. Don’t get us wrong, 20-25 hours is still a good length for a game, and honestly, that kind of a runtime is significantly more preferable to bloated games that go on and on and on for twice or thrice as long (or even longer). That’s certainly not what we want Hogwarts Legacy 2 to do- though it could perhaps find a middle ground that makes for a main story that’s meatier but still doesn’t feel like it overstays its welcome.
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